Latest / Best of Business / Stephen Jacobi: former trade negotiator on Labour criticising the Government for not getting a better trade deal from the Trump administration

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Stephen Jacobi: former trade negotiator on Labour criticising the Government for not getting a better trade deal from the Trump administration · Best of Business

• 0:09
  Speaker 1: You're listening to a podcast from News Talks be follow
• 0:12
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• 0:16
  Speaker 2: Labor has slammed the government for not being upset enough
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  Speaker 2: about Trump's ten percent tariff. They're not happy that the
• 0:22
  Speaker 2: PM is quote being comfortable about it, and they reckon
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  Speaker 2: that means he's failing us all as Kiwi's former trade
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  Speaker 2: negotiated to Stephen Jacoby.
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  Speaker 3: Is with me on the say Stephen, hi, here the
• 0:32
  Speaker 3: how are you?
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  Speaker 2: I'm very well, thank you? What else can he do
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  Speaker 2: other than be comfortable about it?
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  Speaker 3: I wonder really if he is comfortable about these tariffs
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  Speaker 3: being applied. Remember their additional tariff. It's not just the
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  Speaker 3: ten percent tariff. If we're already paying a tariff, it's
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  Speaker 3: ten percent plus, so fifteen percent tariff already on butter
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  Speaker 3: now twenty five percent. No one can be very comfortable
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  Speaker 3: about that.
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  Speaker 2: No, probably not. I mean, is this just something you
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  Speaker 2: have to say diplomatically or what do you think?
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  Speaker 3: Well? What I am comfortable about is where the government
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  Speaker 3: is on this at the moment. It's watching, it's consulting,
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  Speaker 3: it's consulting with raiding partners. In particular, we've got Todd
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  Speaker 3: mclayoff and know powis at the moment doing just that.
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  Speaker 3: It's doing all those right sort of things. You have
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  Speaker 3: to remember that we are being charged as additional tariff
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  Speaker 3: at the lower lowest end of the scale. We don't
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  Speaker 3: have a lot to offer the United States. We've just
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  Speaker 3: seen the UK go and bend the knee in Washington
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  Speaker 3: and come back with not much, nothing less than ten
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  Speaker 3: percent and not a marvelous deal really to boast for it.
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  Speaker 3: So I think we just have to buide our time
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  Speaker 3: for the time being. But make no mistake about it,
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  Speaker 3: this is difficult for New Zealand exporters.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, I bet it strikes me that what the Prime
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  Speaker 2: Minister is probably trying to do with the language that
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  Speaker 2: he is using at the moment is not to draw
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  Speaker 2: attention to New Zealand. Is that fair?
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  Speaker 3: I suspect that is the case. You know, we want
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  Speaker 3: to make ourselves a small target. But he has been
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  Speaker 3: pretty outspoken about the need to develop a dialogue with
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  Speaker 3: the EU and CPTPP partners for example. That's an extremely
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  Speaker 3: good idea. You know. I hope that before too long
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  Speaker 3: we'll see him going to China and doing what he
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  Speaker 3: has to do there as well. Of course, he's launched
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  Speaker 3: this FTA negotiation with India. These are all the things
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  Speaker 3: that we have to be doing to create more options
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  Speaker 3: for our exporters at the best of times and indeed
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  Speaker 3: at the worst of times that we face in the
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  Speaker 3: United States right now.
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  Speaker 2: Absolutely, Stephen, thank you very much for your time. Appreciate it.
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  Speaker 2: Stephen Jacoby, former trade and negotiator.
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